Huangmei Opera

In China, there is such a performing art, which originated from the folk song but has conquered the world. This performing art is Huangmei Opera (黄梅戏). It reputed by foreign friends as "the Chinese countryside music".

The echo of this folk song in Asia consolidated the friendship between China and Japan. In 1986, when Anqing a city of Anhui Province in China, and Ibaraki a city of Japan celebrated the 1 anniversary of their conclusion of sister cities, Anqing the city organized a Visiting Japan Friendship Art Troupe to Ibaraki to participate the commemorative activities and performed Huangmei Opera in Ibaraki Civic Hall. Japan's major media specifically carried a report on this performance, praising that Huangmei Opera was "a representative of the Chinese local operas, and its beautiful melody and rich local flavor can also win the same reputation in the world as Beijing Opera."

Not only in Asia, but also on the other side of the ocean the folk song was sung. Amazingly, the art was so elated. The Chinese people never thought that people with the white skin and blue eyes would really fall in love with our stage charming with either light or heavy make-ups. In September 1999, at the invitation of overseas Chinese in the US, Anhui Provincial Huangmei Opera Theatre performed successively in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The United States vice president Gore sent a congratulatory letter, the mayors of Alhambra and Montreal awarded 10 Huangmei Opera famous stars such as Ma Lan with the honorary citizen certificates of the two cities. Stephen Lee the vice president of the United States of America Asian Cultural Academy said: "Maybe one day, we can enjoy the art of Huangmei Opera on the stage of Broadway."

A Brief Introduction to Huangmei Opera

As a young genre of China, Huangmei Opera may trace its development origin back to Caichadiao (Tea-picking Tune) in Huangmei County, Hubei Province. It evolved from the ditty of the folk song, and its tune was not only melodious, euphemistic, and beautiful, full of the fragrance of the fresh earth, but also easy to understand and disseminate, deeply loved by people all over the country.

The Huangmei County was a small town with natural abundance and beautiful scenery. People here were baptized with the most primitive breath of nature, and tea was one of the specialties here. The labor workers in the Huangmei County, who were naturally positive, optimistic, and honest, and fond of songs and dances, liked to sing in their work, by applying the smooth and sentimental ditties to release their emotions. Such emotions slowly infected the surrounding areas of the Huangmei County, and ultimately in the late eighteenth century, the working people in the adjacent areas of the three provinces of Anhui, Hubei, and Jiangxi commonly created Caichadiao. So, the Huangmei Opera is also known as Caichaxi (Tea-picking Opera).

One branch of the Tea-picking Opera gradually moved eastward to Anqing area of Anhui Province with Huaining County as the center, and combined with the local folk art, singing and speaking in the local language, and forming its own characteristics, known as "Huai Qiang" or "Huai Tune". This is the predecessor of today's Huangmei Opera. The rich and colorful folk arts and the customs and practices full of artistic appeal in the local areas of Anqing provided a fertile ground for the infant Huangmei Opera to grow up.

At that time. Huangmei Opera did not have the fixed performers, and everyone came together to perform in the festivals or at leisure time and dispersed after the performance. Huangmei Opera was just an entertainment activity. It was not until 1912 that Huangmei Opera had the occupational performing groups, which arranged and transplanted the new repertoires and enriched the performing means. By then, Huangmei Opera had become truly mature.

The earliest Huangmei Opera was born in the small mountain villages, but it should go to the big cities for its development so as to let more people know. During the period from the Revolution of 1911 to the founding of the People's Republic of China, the performance of Huangmei Opera intended to be occupational，and stepped onto the metropolitan stages from the rural grass-stages. After Huangmei Opera went into the cities, it even cooperated with Beijing Opera and was influenced in Shanghai by Yueju Opera and Pingju Opera from the north, thus it underwent a big change in terms of the contents and forms of performance. The development during this period drove Huangmei Opera to gradually go toward the stage which suited both refined and popular tastes.

After the founding of the PRC, Huangmei Opera recovered and developed rapidly. In 1953, Anhui Provincial Huangmei Opera Troupe was established in Hefei. In 1954, the Huangmei Opera Goddess Marriage took part in East China Opera Performance Observing Assembly and was quite successful. The play was also shot into films twice and caused a sensation at home and abroad. A number of outstanding plays newly created and adapted such as The FemaJe Royal Son-in-law were staged.

Whether in the incubation period or the growth period, the environment in which Huangmei Opera lied were soft words in the ear and the joys of spring, and its main creators were farmers and craftsmen. So, Huangmei Opera is a genre which was the closest to life, and the most intimate and natural. From its formation to its development, Huangmei Opera was naturally created, and nothing would be more appropriate to describe it as "The lotus comes out of the clear water, and is purely natural without carving".

With accumulation and creation by artists of many generations, now Huangmei Opera has become an important branch in the Chinese opera garden.

If you have the opportunity to listen to Huangmei Opera, you will be surprised at the Huangmei Opera costumes and make-ups. You will feel that people standing on the stage are the film actresses, who come to play movies rather than sing the drama. You don’t know that this is one of the characteristics of Huangmei Opera! The costumes the actors wear are designed according to the story background and characters' need. What age and what kind of person need to wear what kind of costumes and paint what kind of make-ups.

In the misty and flower-blooming March, the south of Yangtze River is picturesque. What kind of local costumes and practices creates what kind of songs. Just as the boundlessly vast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau create the resonant voices of people in the plateau, the timbre of Huangmei Opera actor contains a wisp of sweetness, brightness, and euphemism, and such a song can go through the ears to the soul of man. and let you try to stop but cannot and lead a person to endless aftertastes.

Natural and unmannered costumes and make-ups, the oriole-like voice, plus the Huangmei Opera actor's charming and attractive eyes and euphemistic, slightly exaggerated body postures make people watch Huangmei Opera as to enjoy a feast of art.

From 1980s to the turn of this century, in addition to mainland China, Huangmei Opera was ever performed 7 times in Hong Kong, three times in Macao, and four times on Taiwan Island. It can be said that it has been sung all over the places across both sides of the Yangtze River.